Background: Cluster Headache (CH) is a severe primary headache, with a poorly understood pathophysiology. Complex genetic factors are likely to play a role in CH etiology; however, no confirmed gene associations have been identified. The aim of this study is to identify genetic variants influencing risk to CH and to explore the potential pathogenic mechanisms. Methods: We have performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) in a clinically well-defined cohort of 99 Italian patients with CH and in a control sample of 360 age-matched sigarette smoking healthy individuals, using the Infinium PsychArray (Illumina), which combines common highly-informative genome-wide tag SNPs and exonic SNPs. Genotype data were used to carry out a genome-wide single marker case-control association analysis using common SNPs, and a gene-based association analysis focussing on rare protein altering variants in 745 candidate genes with a putative role in CH. Results: Although no single variant showed statistically significant association at the genome-wide threshold, we identified an interesting suggestive association (P = 9.1 × 10−6) with a common variant of the PACAP receptor gene (ADCYAP1R1). Furthermore, gene-based analysis provided significant evidence of association (P = 2.5 × 10−5) for a rare potentially damaging missense variant in the MME gene, encoding for the membrane metallo-endopeptidase neprilysin. Conclusions: Our study represents the first genome-wide association study of common SNPs and rare exonic variants influencing risk for CH. The most interesting results implicate ADCYAP1R1 and MME gene variants in CH susceptibility and point to a role for genes involved in pain processing. These findings provide new insights into the pathogenesis of CH that need further investigation and replication in larger CH samples.

A genome-wide analysis in cluster headache points to neprilysin and PACAP receptor gene variants / Bacchelli, Elena; Cainazzo, Maria Michela; Cameli, Cinzia; Guerzoni, Simona; Martinelli, Angela; Zoli, Michele; Maestrini, Elena; Pini, Luigi Alberto. - In: THE JOURNAL OF HEADACHE AND PAIN. - ISSN 1129-2369. - 17:1(2016), pp. 114-114.

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